State Sends Confidential Information Of Nearly 9,000 Illinoisans To Wrong Addresses

By Greg Bishop |, The Center Square

ILLINOIS – Personal information of nearly 9,000 Illinois families was sent by the state to the wrong mailing address in November and December last year. The state says it's working to ensure the error doesn’t happen again.

The Illinois Department of Central Management Services issued a joint statement Friday from the Departments of Innovation and Technology, Health and Family Services and Human Services that a change of address registry from the USPS was matched with an out-of-date client file by a state employee.

“The resulting file was loaded into IES, the State’s eligibility system, and incorrectly changed the address for 8,848 [Health and Family Services] and [Illinois Department of Human Services] households,” according to a news release. “As a result of the error, in late November and December 2020, notices were mailed to 8,848 households at incorrect addresses. Notices were sent to the right customer name at the wrong customer address.”

Those notices may have included names, case numbers, names of dependents, birth dates and even confidential medical information.

“Of the 8,848 notices that were mailed, one notice included a complete Social Security number, and five notices included a complete bank account number,” the agency said. “To date, the Departments are unaware of any actual or attempted misuse of personal information as a result of the incident.”

The department said it is notifying the General Assembly, the Illinois Attorney General and affected parties.

“The Departments are working to ensure that this error does not happen again, as the privacy of our customers and their families is of paramount importance,” the news release said.

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